The network of our Teaching Hospitals

In accordance with the decision made by the Dean and the Faculty of the UPMS, the existing contracts with the Teaching Hospitals are to be revised and renewed.
The quality control of our widely recognised MD degree has become increasingly important in the past few years. As a consequence of the measures taken, a vivid discussion has been started both in the community of instructors and among students, serving as a guide-line for renewing our contacts with the Teaching Hospitals dating back to several decades.
It seemed to be high time to do so, as the last agreements with the Teaching Hospitals in Szekszárd, Kaposvár, Zalaegerszeg, Szombathely were signed by professor Béla Flerkó, then-rector of the University Pécs Medical School exactly 30 years ago, in September, 1982.

What is the role of the Teaching Hospitals network?

Medical education is primarily a practical training. As a most important part of it, our students gain hands-on experience on the speciality in question at the patients’ bedside under our instructors’ supervision and personal guidance. These skills cannot be acquired from textbooks. Due to the high number of students, in most of the sites of medical education, including Pécs, no high quality training can be provided on the low number of beds available. This is the reason for introducing the Teaching Hospitals network, where significantly lower numbers of medical students are assigned to each physician, who can impart more thorough teaching.
Bedside teaching is imparted outside the headquarters of the Medial School, while it takes place under strictly controlled conditions. In accordance with a programme elaborated by directors of the hospitals responsible for teaching a given subject, further contribution to the organisation is offered by the introduction of clinical grade-books specially designed for bedside teaching, which contain the list of the most essential and important skills to be acquired. This list is further divided into three groups depending on whether the medical students a) needs only to see the intervention during his/her studies, b) needs to carry out the given diagnostic and therapeutic intervention under supervision or c) needs to be able to carry them out independently, without supervision.
The Teaching Hospitals network offers further advantages including that 4th-, 5th- and 6th-year students may require that their bedside teaching is provided at the Teaching Hospital closest to their place of residence, which gives them a chance to get acquainted with the curing activity in the hospital as well as the colleagues. This arrangement may also be advantageous for the hospital by giving it an opportunity for selecting their future physicians.

Which Teaching Hospitals have been contracted?

Following the tradition of the renewed contract with the four hospitals mentioned above (Szekszárd, Kaposvár, Zalaegerszeg, Szombathely) new Teaching Hospitals became involved, including Szent Imre Hospital of Budapest, Petz Aladár County Hospital of Győr and the County Hospital of Veszprém. In this list Szent Imre Hospital, which belongs to our ‘competing’ medical school in Budapest, seems to be a bit odd, but, considering that our Medical School takes the second largest contingent of students from Budapest, it becomes understandable.
All the Teaching Hospitals mentioned above have been accredited for residents and specialists training. Therefore, it was not necessary to gain further accreditation for teaching clinical subjects in the graduate education. Because of the high numbers of German medical students, Biedefeld Hospital has also become our Teaching Hospital.
At the ceremony of signing the new contracts and awarding the Teaching Hospital’s titles leaders of the Faculty assured hospital directors that any ambitious instructor wishing to start doctoral studies at Pécs Medical School will be supported.
This summer our students have had the chance to spend longer or shorter periods of time in all Teaching Hospitals, which makes it possible for us to collect and assess their feedback.

We do hope that this initiative will be well-received both by our students and the Teaching Hospitals’ staff, and the mutually advantageous cooperation will result in a significant increase in the quality of practical medical training.